Horror Movie Pinup Rerun

Every once in a blue moon I draw one of these, I enjoy doing them but never have time to work on a new one. I think i finished up the last one a year or so ago. I've messed up a few, I have a list of characters I'd like tod raw and still hope to. These are fun to do (usually).

Here's who these folks are, and the movies they come from:

1) Dr. Herbest West, Re-Animator (1985). Loosely based on the H.P. Lovecraft story, a classic 80s splatterfest with the great Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton. You should see it.

2) The Tall Man, Phantasm (1979). One of my all-time favorite horror movies. I also love the sequel, but I dislike the third movie and can't stand the last two. Angus Scrimm as the Tall Man is a favrotie horror icon, I'd buy a decent action figure of him in a heartbeat.

3) Octaman (1971). A lousy movie with a really fun monster costume created by a very young Rick Baker, a retired modern master of horror effects. Often misspelled as "Octoman" because "Octaman" doesn't really make sense. Just like the movie. I still love Octaman.

4) Darryl Revok, Scanners (1981). A rushed and flawed but still incredible David Cronenberg film about telepathy, conspiracy and family. And Ephemorol. Contains several key gore scenes from the 80s, some courtesy of masters of horror effects Chris Walas and Dick Smith. Darryl Revok is played by the great Michael Ironside, who makes a super effective telepathic villain. Fun fact: Sarah and I wrote some dialogue for Michael Ironside in the Superman animated series, he played Darkseid in the series and appeared in one episode we worked on, "Little Girl Lost Part 2". The same episode features Ed Asner as Granny Goodness and Andrea Matin as Mad Harriet, so, I got all geeked out when I first saw it.

5) Cesare, the Somnabulist, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920). I have to sheepishly admit to only seeing scenes from this incredibly influential silent film. One of these days I'll sit down for the whole thing, maybe tonight, it's only an hour and seven minutes long. It's an amazing looking film, shot on impressionistic, surrealistic theatrical sets. Cesare is portrayed by the great Conrad Veidt. Look at a still of Veidt in the movie The Man Who Laughs and you'll see where The Joker came from.

6) The Crimson Executioner, Bloody Pit of Horror (1965). A ridiculous but entertaining Italian schlocker about a deranged dude in a castle who believes he's the reincarnation of a 17th century executioner (who looks like a crazed musclebound Aquabat). Some models and photographers show up at the castle and the brightly-colored blood starts flowing.

7) Coffin Joe, At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul (1964). José Mojica Marins played Zé do Caixão, aka Coffin Joe, in a series of films and projects after the success of Brazil's first producded horror film featuring the iconic undertaker who hates the church, rejects the supernatural and attempts to produce an immortal son through procreation with a "perfect woman". He's nuts but you'll find yourself rooting for this horrible miscreant because he's one hell of a charismatic maniac. At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul is a lot of fun, the follow-up This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse is definiely worth seeing, I still haven't seen The Embodiment of Evil which completes the Coffin Joe trilogy. I've seen Awakening of the Beast which I don't recommend in the least unless you want to see everything Marins did related to Coffin Joe. I might go that route someday, but I have issues.

8) Isaac and Malachai, Children of the Corn (1984). I didn't like this movie but the characters of Isaac and Malachai are ones for the books. They're the only things that work in this sorry Stephen King short story adaptation. I know a lot of people love it, but I can't for the life of me understand why this movie did so well and became such a successful franchise, none of the sequels I've seen were any good. We fear killer kids and cults and I guess it's cheap to go out in a cornfield with a camera and hire some dirty children to attack adults, but they don't work for me. I've seen Children of the Corn, Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice (some title), Children of the Corn: Runaway and Children of the Corn: Genesis, and the three sequels do make the original seem decent in comparison. Will I watch more Children of the Corn movies? I've seen all the Hellraiser sequels, so, I'll watch anything, apparently, horror-wise. Meaning, yes.

9) Roger Grimes, Squirm (1976). So, most everyone hates Squirm, but I really like it, which means don't take my opinions as anything more than what they are -- opinions. More people want to see Children of the Corn again rather than Squirm. Squirm is about killer worms, juiced up by electricity, attacking folks in a small rural town. It's cheap, ridiculous, too dark in places and awkward but I've seen it a few times and will watch it again. it sells the ridiculous concept and it's creepy as heck. I like the way it sets up the characters and the town, and the worms are goddamned yucky. Especially when they burrow into Roger Grimes' face and possess him or wreck his brain or whatever the hell happens to turn him into a murderous maniac. If you're scared of worms this won't be a good experience for you. Squirm was directed by Jeff Lieberman, who also made Blue Sunshine, Just Before Dawn and Satan's Little Helper. Like Squirm, they all have weird concepts, effective scenes and striking images, but they all pretty much fall apart before hitting the finish line. Satan's Little Helper just plain-out collapses at one point and just goes to pieces, but I'll rewatch the others for sure. Lieberman should have had one great film in him but it just never happened. Kind of Larry Cohen-like in ways.

10) Nightbeast (1982). Nightbeast is the second of several Don Dohler movies where something from space lands in Baltimore and causes trouble, and arguably it's the most polished and entertaining of them. The Nightbeast has a great monster head, is dressed in shiny club gear and has a gun that shoots disco lights at the local population. This movie never fails to cheer me up, it's cheap 50's monster movie nostalgia but gung-ho and entertaining. We won't talk about the infamous sex scene, for many it's the only real scare in the picture. If you like no-budget regional schlock check out Fiend, The Alien Factor, Alien Factor 2, The Galaxy Invader and the very bizarre Blood Massacre. Fiend and Blood Massacre don't have aliens or monster suits or stop motion, FYI. And read up on Doh Dohler, interesting guy who was involved in fandom, early fan magazines and special effects how-to material.

11) Cemetery Ghoul, Night of the Living Dead (1968). Or Cemetery Zombie, depending on how much of a purist you are about these things. The first undead we see in the Living Deadverse, this creepy bastard doing a Boris Karloff Frankenstein's Monster lurch is still the most iconic zombie going, unless you think of Bub first. I don't. This dude scared the living bejeezus out of me when I was a youngster babysitting my two nieces in a small bungalow near some woods in Monticello, NY. Channel 9 was showing NOTLD and channel 4 was airing Saturday Night Live, and I kept flipping the dial back and forth when I couldn't take the horror movie and needed a break. The attraction/repulsion was strong in me that night, and I had me some nightmares afterward. The cemetery ghoul/zombie was played by S. William Hinzman, credited as Bill Heinzman. He was credited as Bill Hinzeman in Romero's Season of the Witch, as Billy Hinzman in Romero's The Crazies, and Bill Hinzman in FleshEater, which he directed and starred in (as, basically, the zombie from NOTLD). Hinzman-Heinzman-Hinezman also directed and appeared in NOTLD co-writer Josh Russo's The Majorettes. I rewatched NOTLD on Halloween, and it still holds up for me. I like the Savini-directed remake. I loved Dawn of the Dead, kind of liked Day of the Dead, didn't like Land of The Dead, intensely disliked Diary of the Dead and loathed Survival of the Dead. But remember, I'm the guy who liked Squirm.

12) Orville Dunworth, Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things (1972). Orville is the main zombie (or ghoul, depending on purists, it gets tiresome, doesn't it?) in this early Night of the Living Dead rip, which is also the movie that starts off a series of horror films involving Bob Clark and/or Alan Ormsby, such as Deathdream (aka Dead of Night), Black Christmas, and Deranged. Ormsby also stars in Children as one of the most punchable characters in horror film history. Ormsby also did makeup effects work on Children, Deathdream and the Nazi zombie horror movie Shock Waves, he also created the Hugo, Man of a Thousand Faces toy from Kenner in 1975, which you'll recognize if you're a fan of The Uncle Floyd Show (I had Uncle Floyd sign my Hugo at a signing we did together). You'll very likely know Bob Clark for A Christmas Story, possibly the first two Porky's films (I've never seen any of them) and the much-despised Baby Geniuses (I won't even go near the posters for those). People hated CSPWDT for a long time but it's gained a better reputation as being a solid low-budget horror comedy, as well as the first comedic take on flesheating zombies. It's cheap, it starts slow, but it's atmospheric and the low budget zombie makeup is really effective. I caught a chunk of this as a kid on the always-risky channel 9 in NYC and it scared the shit out of me. I saw it at one of the Exhumed Films shows and rewatched it recently and I will surely watch it again someday. Even if you dislike it, Orville is a creepy dead dude and it has one of the best titles for a horror movie ever. Give it a spin.

13) Deneb and the Tala, Killers From Space (1955). An endearingly stupid cheapie that's good for laughs. The director was Billy Wilder's brother, the costumes were supposedly reused from a Columbia serial, the eyes of the Astron Delta aliens were made from the bottoms of plastic egg containers. They didn't have time to straighten the egg carton eyeballs so all the space killers look crosseyed. There are clouds in space in one scene. The aliens are beaten by the use of a slide rule. Easygoing 50s nonsense.